This beta (8.5.1.12) is now labelled in the DAZ forums as "Release Candidate." Just FYI.

I'm afraid to try the beta versions anymore. I've had enough trouble to deal with on final releases on Mac since v8, and with no feedback on bug reports, it feels pointless filing issues that may not be relevant to anyone but me. I might have better luck had I not many years of stuff installed under older folder systems and from several previous versions of Carrara, but I do. I may have simply run into an immoveable wall, of frustration or obsolescence or both.

It's a product. We're consumers. We are not required to be cheerleaders; that's what our purchasing power is for. And legitimate complaints — such as, you're charging more than you promised for a release that is largely centered around selling us new content and fixing bugs from the previous release — should be heard. Relentless positivism is simply driving me batty. Carrara is a product, not a religion. There have been, particularly with Apple and the Mac versions, some serious problems  (with Mac, we're now almost THREE operating systems further along since 8.1, for instance, and 8.1 stopped working for most of us with a new OSX three months after 8.1 was released — two years ago). I'm glad some of you are ecstatic. I'm a little annoyed at being charged full upgrade price (albeit with discounts) for a release that fixes bugs and makes it possible for me to buy new content. I find it ironic the bug tracker completely changed right before this release, and all the previous history wiped clean.

I'm truly as positive as they come, and I'm irritated at the general, "How dare you have concerns." For instance, DIM still isn't installing for Mac successfully, into the Carrara package, and there are no instructions anymore on how to do it manually. And CMS isn't working at all on many Macs, but there's no guidance at all on what to do. Bringing up the problem, however, is being negative. Whatever.

Yeah. Really. And I could have bought the thing today, instead of waiting for them to bother sending me my pre-order link. Really, really stinks. They had a chance with me, and I think they just blew it.

How much more specific do I need to be? Try opening one of Andi3d's Cloisters pz3 scenes, and see how slowly it responds. I don't know how much more detail I can provide that I haven't already above. Two Carrara trees, some Anything Grows grass, and a couple of very short arched hallways shouldn't respond as though I had loaded all of Dystopia into one file, IMHO. The only Carrara log on my Mac is the crash log, but those logs record the status of a program and its relationship with the Mac at the point of a system/software crash. Carrara doesn't crash in these native import instances, it just moves very, very slowly.

I've tried it with preview set to wireframe and had problems; I've removed all extraneous objects, both through the menu and by manual examination; I've used software and OpenGL preview, I've made sure nothing else was open except Carrara, and that texture spooling is running. It seems to be a problem specifically with Poser native import. (BTW, I'm a dual G4, 2GM memory, 128M Radeon 9800 Pro, and don't have this problem with more complicated, non-Poser files...) I suggested it might be Mac only because I haven't seen any PC users particularly complaining about the issue. Granted I jumped to a conclusion...

esther, I've had the same trouble with Poser native import -- it can take Carrara forever just to open a file with numerous native-imported objects (even when the file's as small as 36M), and making changes is possible only through entering information by keyboard, because Carrara can't keep the display synched up with mouse operations fast enough. I've tried pretty much everything, and nothing significantly helps. I'm beginning to wonder if this is another Mac issue somehow...

You might also check on a new feature in 5.0.5 - under Preferences/Imaging, Scratch Disks; be sure texture spooling is on. This makes Carrara use disk virtual memory for large texture maps, instead of loading them into memory.

Thanks - that was the solution I'd come to, anyway, but somehow I'd missed that message.

Message edited on: 03/30/2006 20:38

This isn't really earth-shattering, I suppose; but it surprised me that C5 could do it. OK, I'm easily surprised. But with just a couple of original terrain primitives and a couple of differing replicators, you can quickly build some large, fairly complex landscapes.

I'm sorry, the option-click DOES work on a Mac. I work on a Mac. IT works. I'm not sure what trouble you're having now, but it exceeds anything I've faced.

Fresnel channel option-click was one of the things I discovered by not reading the manual for a while ;)

BTW, when the production frame goes non-Euclidean, try resetProdFrame plug-in from Associatedfx. It's a free extension, and they've got some other useful ones.

Some of your slow-downs might be related to the OS - current MacOSX is 10.4.5. There have been significant changes since 10.2.

To get rid of Fresnel channel: right-click (or option-click) and you'll be presented with the full shader menu, where you can choose none or value, etc.

I believe the boxed figure in the refraction menu is solely to enter your own value, not to reflect the menu; choosing from the menu makes the box irrelevant. Mind you, I think that's true.